1) Field of the Invention
The present invention is a system to detect the presence of a queen bee, particularly a queen honeybee, in a hive. Different alternative forms of the invention are disclosed. The first system includes an RFID (radio frequency identification) tag (secured to the queen) and a detection device that detects the RFID tag (secured to the hive opening, for example) and sends or records an output that can be interpreted as indicating the presence or absence of the queen bee. Alternatively, in a second embodiment of the present invention, a bit of metal (thin foil) can be secured to the queen by means of an adhesive, for example, and a metal detector can be positioned by the hive opening to detect the metal, and send or record an output that can be interpreted as indicating the presence or absence of the queen bee. Lastly, in a third embodiment of the present invention, one or more infrared cameras can be positioned adjacent the hive entrance, coupled with computer identification scanning software that can detect the difference between a drone, a worker and a queen bee, and indicate the presence or absence of the queen bee. In each case the output signal can be as simple as a light that is illuminated and/or an antenna that allows the signal to be transmitted remotely. The system may also include a portable hand wand that will detect the location of a queen within a hive.
2) Prior Art
During the main honey flow, it is not unusual for a single beehive to have 60,000 bees. Most of the bees will be workers, perhaps a few thousand may be drones, but there is normally only one queen bee. Therefore, when it is time to find the queen, it can be very difficult to find 1 in 60,000.
After a queen has been mated, she rarely leaves a hive on her own accord. But if the queen leaves a hive, it usually occurs in the spring with a swarm of other bees from the hive, leaving behind some bees and a few queen cells to enable the existence of the original hive. The queen and swarm create a new hive elsewhere. Other times a queen dies from disease, or pests or accidental killing by the beekeeper when manipulating the hive. If she dies in the hive, the worker bees will remove her from the hive.
It is important to know if a queen is no longer in a hive and to make plans to replace her as soon as possible. This helps insure that the continued existence of the hive. Sometimes it is enough to know if the queen is in the hive, i.e., she did not swarm, or has not died, and other time it is important to know where the queen is in the hive, to replace her, for example, when she has aged out.
Commercial beekeepers may have thousands of hives. Trying to either determine if the queen is in the hive or find the queen in each hive takes time and is labor intensive. Hobby beekeepers have only a few hives, but generally are slower to find the queen bee because of lack of experience. Both groups could benefit from a system that: 1) detects if a queen bee is in a hive, and/or 2) determines the specific location of the queen in the hive. Furthermore, commercial beekeepers could additionally benefit from such a system if it could send the output signal to a remote location.